Glenstr
09-08-2007, 11:35 AM
My wife works at a small public library and they want to enable some wireless access, just for the staff for now, but eventually will likely be a hotspot for people that bring laptops in. The immediate need is she is moving her office to where there is no ethernet and wants to stay connected with her laptop. The new location has a large glass window between it and her old location. The local store they usually get stuff from sold them a DI-524 Dlink wireless router and said that was what they needed. I told her they should have bought just an access point but in this small town no one sells them off the shelf.
Since the store they bought this from charges them a lot (plus aren't that competent IMO) and she wants it set up asap I am thinking about the following options:
Plug the ethernet from where she used to sit into the WAN port on the DI 524 , I'm pretty sure this will work but don't know what implications it will have on how she is connected to the LAN
Plug the existing ethernet cable she uses into the new wireless routers LAN port instead of WAN port and change it's static IP address to a unique one outside the pool of the existing DHCP server. I read that this method will make the DI 524 act more like and access point than a router.
Tell her to take it back, flash my spare (new) WRT54GL with dd-wrt and put it in place as an access point. (Not sure how to so this in dd-wrt but I'm pretty sure it can be done.) Then tell her to order a standalone wireless access point.
I'm thinking the last option is the best, if I go that route, what is a good inexpensive wireless access point to look at? Just checked them out an there is a myriad of different types out there and I don't know that mush about them.
thanks!
Since the store they bought this from charges them a lot (plus aren't that competent IMO) and she wants it set up asap I am thinking about the following options:
Plug the ethernet from where she used to sit into the WAN port on the DI 524 , I'm pretty sure this will work but don't know what implications it will have on how she is connected to the LAN
Plug the existing ethernet cable she uses into the new wireless routers LAN port instead of WAN port and change it's static IP address to a unique one outside the pool of the existing DHCP server. I read that this method will make the DI 524 act more like and access point than a router.
Tell her to take it back, flash my spare (new) WRT54GL with dd-wrt and put it in place as an access point. (Not sure how to so this in dd-wrt but I'm pretty sure it can be done.) Then tell her to order a standalone wireless access point.
I'm thinking the last option is the best, if I go that route, what is a good inexpensive wireless access point to look at? Just checked them out an there is a myriad of different types out there and I don't know that mush about them.
thanks!